Testimony before the
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
May 20, 2009
My name is Lisa Curtis. I am a senior
research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in
this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as
representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
Pakistan and China have long-standing strategic ties, dating
back five decades. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari wrote in a
recent op-ed that, "No relationship between two sovereign states is
as unique and durable as that between Pakistan and China."[1]
China's partnership with Pakistan first emerged during the
mid-1950s when Beijing reached out to several developing countries,
and then deepened significantly during the period of Sino-Indian
hostility from 1962 to the late 1980s.
Chinese policy toward Pakistan is driven primarily by its
interest in countering Indian power in the region and diverting
Indian military force and strategic attention away from China.
South Asia expert Stephen Cohen describes China as pursuing a
classic balance of power by supporting Pakistan in a relationship
that mirrors the one between the U.S. and Israel.[2] The China-Pakistan
partnership serves both Chinese and Pakistani interests by
presenting India with a potential two-front theater in the event of
war with either country.[3]
Chinese officials also view a certain degree of India-Pakistan
tension as advancing their own strategic interests as such friction
bogs India down in South Asia and interferes with New Delhi's
ability to assert its global ambitions and compete with China at
the international level. That said, Beijing has demonstrated in
recent years that it favors bilateral Indo-Pakistani negotiations
to resolve their differences and has played a helpful role in
preventing the outbreak of full-scale war between the two
countries, especially during the 1999 Indo-Pakistani border
conflict in the heights of Kargil.
Chinese-Pakistan Defense Ties
China is Pakistan's largest defense supplier. China transferred
equipment and technology and provided scientific expertise to
Pakistan's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs
throughout the 1980s and 1990s, enhancing Pakistan's strength in
the South Asian strategic balance. The most significant development
in China-Pakistan military cooperation occurred in 1992 when China
supplied Pakistan with 34 short-range ballistic M-11 missiles.[4] Recent sales of conventional
weapons to Pakistan include JF-17 aircraft, JF-17 production
facilities, F-22P frigates with helicopters, K-8 jet trainers, T-85
tanks, F-7 aircraft, small arms, and ammunition.[5] Beijing also built a
turnkey ballistic-missile manufacturing facility near the city of
Rawalpindi and helped Pakistan develop the 750-km-range,
solid-fueled Shaheen-1 ballistic missile.[6]While the U.S. has sanctioned
Pakistan in the past--in 1965 and again in 1990--China has
consistently supported Pakistan's military modernization
effort.
China has helped Pakistan build two nuclear reactors at the
Chasma site in the Punjab Province and continues to support
Pakistan's nuclear program, although it has been sensitive to
international condemnation of the A. Q. Khan affair and has
calibrated its nuclear assistance to Pakistan accordingly. During
Pakistani President Zardari's visit to Beijing in mid-October 2008,
Beijing pledged to help Pakistan construct two new nuclear power
plants at Chasma, but did not propose or agree to a major
China-Pakistan nuclear deal akin to the U.S.-India civil nuclear
agreement. U.S. congressional Members have expressed concern about
China's failure to apply Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) "full-scope
safeguards" to its nuclear projects in Pakistan.[7]
China also is helping Pakistan develop a deep-sea port at the
naval base at Gwadar in Pakistan's province of Baluchistan on the
Arabian Sea. The port would allow China to secure oil and gas
supplies from the Persian Gulf and project power in the Indian
Ocean. China financed 80 percent of the $250 million for completion
of the first phase of the project and reportedly is funding most of
the second phase of the project as well.[8] The complex will provide a port,
warehouses, and industrial facilities for more than 20 countries
and will eventually have the capability to receive oil tankers with
a capacity of 200,000 tons. There is concern that China may turn
its investment in Gwadar Port into access for its warships.
The India Factor
China has been able to successfully pursue closer relations with
India, especially on the economic front (bilateral trade rose from
$5 billion to $40 billion in the course of five years), while
continuing to pursue strong military and strategic ties to
Pakistan.
China's interest in improving ties to India over the last decade
has spurred Beijing to develop a more neutral position on the
Kashmir issue, rather than reflexively taking Pakistan's side,
which has traditionally meant supporting United Nations resolutions
calling for a plebiscite or backing Pakistan's attempts to wrest
the region by force, as with Pakistan's 1965 Operation Gibraltar.[9] A
turning point in China's position on Kashmir came during the 1999
Kargil crisis when Beijing helped convince Pakistan to withdraw
forces from the Indian side of the Line of Control following its
incursion into the Kargil region of Jammu and Kashmir. Beijing made
clear its position that the two sides should resolve the Kashmir
conflict through bilateral negotiations, not military force. India
was pleased with China's stance on the Kargil crisis, which allowed
Beijing and New Delhi to overcome tensions in their relations that
had developed over India's 1998 nuclear tests.
Despite the evolution in the Chinese position on Kashmir, China
continues to maintain a robust defense relationship with Pakistan,
and to view a strong partnership with Pakistan as a useful way to
contain Indian power. China's attempt to scuttle the U.S.-India
civil nuclear agreement at the September 2008 Nuclear Suppliers
Group (NSG) meeting was evidence for many Indians that China does
not willingly accept India's rise on the world stage. The
Chinese--buoyed by the unexpected opposition from NSG nations like
New Zealand, Austria, and Ireland--threatened the agreement with
delaying tactics and last-minute concerns signaled through an
article in the Chinese Communist Party's English-language paper,
The People's Daily.[10] The public
rebuke of the deal followed several earlier assurances from Chinese
leaders that Beijing would not block consensus at the NSG.
Indian observers claim the Chinese tried to walk out of the NSG
meetings in order to prevent a consensus, but that last-minute
interventions from senior U.S. and Indian officials convinced them
that the price of scuttling the deal would be too high, forcing
them to return to the meeting.[11] Indian strategic affairs
analyst Uday Bhaskar attributed the Chinese maneuvering to
longstanding competition between the two Asian rivals. "Clearly,
until now China has been the major power in Asia," said Bhaskar.
"With India entering the NSG, a new strategic equation has been
introduced into Asia and this clearly has caused disquiet to
China." Indian official Palaniappan Chidambaram (now Home
Minister), citing China's position within the NSG, said that, "From
time to time, China takes unpredictable positions that raise a
number of questions about its attitude toward the rise of
India."
Tensions over Separatists and Islamist
Extremists
One source of tension between Beijing and Islamabad that has
surfaced has been the issue of Chinese Uighur separatists receiving
sanctuary and training on Pakistani territory. The Chinese province
of Xinjiang is home to 8 million Muslim Uighurs, many of whom
resent the growing presence and economic grip on the region of the
Han Chinese. Some have agitated for an independent "East
Turkestan." To mollify China's concerns, Pakistan in recent years
has begun to clamp down on Uighur settlements and on religious
schools used as training grounds for militants.[12] Media reports
indicate that Pakistan may have extradited as many as nine Uighurs
to China in April after accusing them of involvement in terrorist
activities.[13]
Tension has also surfaced over Islamist extremism in Pakistan.
It came to a head in the summer of 2007 when vigilantes kidnapped
several Chinese citizens whom they accused of running a brothel in
Islamabad. China was incensed by this incident, and its complaints
to Pakistani authorities likely contributed to Pakistan's decision
to finally launch a military operation at the Red Mosque in
Islamabad, where the militants had been holed up since January
2007. Around the same timeframe as the Red Mosque episode, three
Chinese officials were killed in Peshawar in July 2007. Several
days later, a suicide bomber attacked a group of Chinese engineers
in Baluchistan. Last August, Islamist extremists abducted Chinese
engineer, Long Ziaowei, in Pakistan's Swat Valley. The Chinese
protested vehemently to the Pakistani government and Ziaowei was
released unharmed in February.
Security concerns about Pakistan could move the Chinese in the
direction of working more closely with the international community
to help stabilize the country. During President Zardari's visit to
Beijing in October 2008, Beijing resisted providing Pakistan a
large-scale bailout from its economic crisis, thus forcing
Islamabad to accept an International Monetary Fund program with
stringent conditions for economic reform. Beijing did come through
with a soft loan of about $500 million, though. China is part of
the 11-member "Friends of Democratic Pakistan" grouping that was
formed last September and met in April in Tokyo. The grouping has
pledged to lend collective support to Pakistan in consolidating its
democratic institutions, the rule of law, good governance,
socio-economic advancement, economic reform, and progress in
meeting the challenge of terrorism.
In another sign that China feels increasingly compelled to
pressure Pakistan to adopt more responsible counterterrorism
policies, Beijing dropped its resistance to banning the
Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD--a front organization for the Pakistan-based
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, responsible for the November terrorist attacks
in Mumbai) in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) last
December. China had previously vetoed UNSC resolutions seeking to
ban the JuD over the last several years.
Recommendations for U.S. Policy
Given that China, Pakistan, and India are nuclear-armed states
and that border disputes continue to bedevil both India-Pakistan
and India-China relations, the U.S. must pay close attention to the
security dynamics of the region and seek opportunities to reduce
military tensions and discourage further nuclear proliferation.
China's apparent growing concern over Islamist
extremism in Pakistan may provide opportunities for Washington to
work more closely with Beijing in encouraging more effective
Pakistani counterterrorism policies. Pakistan's reliance on
both the U.S. and China for aid and diplomatic support means that
coordinated approaches from Washington and Beijing provide the best
chance for impacting Pakistani policies in a way that encourages
regional stability. Conversely, the more Pakistan believes it can
play the U.S. and China off one another, the less likely it will be
to take necessary economic and political reforms and to rein in
extremists. China's involvement in the "Friends of Democratic
Pakistan" grouping is a positive sign that it may be willing to
contribute to a multilateral effort aimed at stabilizing the
situation in Pakistan.
The U.S. should also seek to convince China to play a
responsible role with regard to its nuclear cooperation with
Pakistan, emphasizing the need to discourage nuclear-weapons
stockpiling in a country facing the specter of further
instability. China and the U.S. share the goal of preventing
Pakistan's nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands--China
perhaps even more so, given its geographic proximity to Pakistan.
Recent encroachments by the Taliban into parts of northwest
Pakistan have added a more dangerous dimension to nuclear
proliferation in Pakistan and require new thinking among
stakeholders in the region for avoiding a nightmare scenario in
which al-Qaeda gains access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons. There is
little reason to panic about the safety and security of Pakistan's
nuclear weapons at the moment since the Pakistan military is a
professional and unified force that has adopted security procedures
to avoid such a worst-case scenario. Even so, recent developments
in the country should add new impetus to regional efforts to
control nuclear proliferation.
The U.S. should involve China in efforts to encourage greater
South Asia regional economic integration and cooperation.
Chinese financial aid to Pakistan has been valuable in maintaining
economic stability there both before and during the global
financial crisis. Chinese direct investment, such as China Mobile's
acquisition of Paktel, and assisting Afghan and Pakistani companies
to tap the potentially huge Chinese market would be helpful in the
creation of a more prosperous region. Trade flows are relatively
undeveloped and would be particularly promising if transport links
can be improved. Washington should encourage the Chinese to take
part in economic and trade ventures that involve bringing
Afghanistan and Pakistan together for mutual economic benefit. This
would fit with China's interest in accessing Middle East markets
through Afghanistan and Pakistan and help provide each country with
a vested interest in promoting regional stability.
Conclusion
To date China's pursuit of relations with Pakistan has been
aimed primarily at containing Indian power in the region. With
rising instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan and the threat of
Taliban forces gaining influence there, both China and the U.S.
must take responsibility for encouraging greater stability and
coherence among Pakistan's leadership. China's handling of the
current crisis in Pakistan is a true test of its credentials as a
responsible global player.